Love & Hip Hop” (New York) Recap:

The original “Love & Hip Hop” is back in New York, but with a whole lot of brand-new faces. The stars from past seasons (Jim Jones, Chrissy, Emily, Kimbella, etc.) have been kicked to the curb and in their place are Joe Budden, his ex-girlfriend Tahiry, radio personality Raqi Thunda and many more.

In the premiere episode of the third season of LHHNY, viewers are thrown right into the relationship melodrama with Tahiry and Joe.

Tahiry, she with the centaur ass, was Joe Budden’s girlfriend for more than 5 years. Their relationship played out on the blogs and on social media, until it all exploded and fell apart.

But Joe and Tahiry just can’t let each other go. There’s “unfinished business” between the two, so Joe decides to invite Tahiry to lunch so they can “talk.”

Now this is how you know this show is scripted. What rapper invites his ex-girlfriend out to lunch at a fancy sit-down restaurant to “talk”?

In real life, if Joe wanted to talk to Tahiry, he’d scoop her up, and they’d hit up the McDonald’s drive-thru. But VH1 wanna make them look all fancy and shit.

No worries though; it doesn’t take long for Tahiry to show her true ratchet stripes.

Joe tries to mend fences with Tahiry, saying he wants to be friends. Tahiry, however, pushes back and points out that she has a hard time trusting him because of how he treated her in the past. Mr. “Pump It U”p then accuses Tahiry of being selfish and incapable of giving of herself.

That’s when Tahiry loses it and starts hollering like a Tasmanian Devil at Joe about how she gave him EVERYTHING. ALL OF HER!

She shakes the table, knocks over all the food and drank on the table and storms off. Somebody’s clearly been reading the K. Michelle vs. Karlie Redd playbook. Is there gonna be a shaken table in every VH1 reality show now?

After the traumatic fight, Tahiry runs to her friend Rashidah Ali. Apparently, this Kool-Aid-headed chick is some kind of shoe stylist to the stars, but really, she looks like an overweight and unsuccessful version of Rihanna from the “LOUD” era.

Fat Rihanna tells Tahiry that she needs to let Joe go cause he’s no good for her and complains about how Tahiry needs to move past Joe and all that.

Damn. Is this Deja Vu, or did we not hear this exact same shit with Mimi, Stevie J and Ariane? Time to come up with a new plotline Mona.

Tahiry vs. Raqi Thunda

Joe Budden isn’t the only person Tahiry has to grapple with though. Her former friend, radio personality Raqi Thunda, has also been thrown in the mix and there’s a lot of bad blood between the two.

Raqi is supposedly Joe’s “best friend,” but she was also friends with Tahiry back before Tahiry dated Joe.

Unfortunately, once Raqi and Joe were booked for a morning show gig with Sirius XM, Raqi grew close to Joe, which raised Tahiry’s suspicions about her gal pal. In short, Tahiry quickly became convinced that their relationship was more than a working one.

Raqi and Joe both deny ever being sexually intimate, but Tahiry doesn’t believe either of them. And honestly, given the possessiveness Raqi has over Joe, we’re inclined to believe something really did go down between her and Joe.

Throughout the episode, Raqi and Tahiry have a series of meetings. First, they try to bury the hatchet at lunch (what is it with these people and settling conflicts in restaurants?) but that doesn’t work.

Then, they meet up again at Joe’s pool party. He invites both Raqi and Tahiry, even though he knew they couldn’t stand each other. To squash the beef between the two, Joe comes up with the bright idea of playing “Truth or Truth” to put everyone’s feelings on the table.

But not so fast. Before Tahiry can even get her big ol’ butt warm, Raqi is mouthing off about not wanting to hear “lies, lies, lies” and BAM! Tahiry strikes.

After Joe and his friends successfully break that fight up, they sit back down and try to play the game again. Joe warns Raqi that she needs to behave.

But Raqi’s not having it.

Raqi keeps picking, picking and picking at Tahiry and before you know it, Raqi gets the VH1 special (a drink thrown on you) from Tahiry.

Joe immediately sides with Tahiry and embarrassingly has Raqi thrown out. He literally drags her off the premises and his dog jumps all up on Raqi barking in doginese for her to GTFO.

Raqi got played so bad.

Never come between and man and his old piece of ass. You’ll always lose out, girl.

Yandy is pregnant this go ’round and she takes the opportunity to introduce the world to her man, Mendeecees.

Jesus Christ.

If your name rhymes with feces you know something is really wrong.

Apparently, he’s a “bad boy” from Harlem. Yandy must have a different definition of a bad boy than the rest of us.

Are the thugs in Harlem sponsored by Izod or something? Mendeecees seems like a bucktoothed fool with a struggling MySpace following. Nothing says street or rapper about him.

Everything, in fact, screams punk — as in a weak-willed man, not the music genre — and he proves to be quite the punk indeed.

After their baby shower in the club (Lord have mercy), Menfeces tells Yandy that he bout to go to another club afterward, leaving her with the responsibility of lugging all of the gifts from the shower back to their apartment.

When Yandy complains to Menfeces that she can’t do it all alone, he replies that her dad can help her out.

What kind of punk shit is this? Where is Yandy’s daddy up in here? Cause he needs to snatch this fuckin’ ninja turtle by the neck and throw him into the Hudson river for this shit.

Later, the next day, Menfeces is scrubbing around on the couch while Yandy complains about all the baby shower gifts she had to help her father carry into the apartment

Menfeces mumbles and grumbles about having to go through the presents and announces that he thinks they should move, because the apartment is in Yandy’s name only and not his, so he doesn’t feel comfortable.

But Yandy’s 9 months and a few weeks pregnant, and is about to deliver this fetus any minute now. How does this make sense?

As a matter of fact, why is Menfeces worried about legal rights when he doesn’t even want to put a ring on Yandy’s finger???

Olivia, one of the only original cast mates remaining, is still flopping around in irrelevance. So she decides to occupy her time by worrying about her manager Rich’s love life.

Rich, trying to get his Steebie J on, is dating one of his artists, Erica Mena. (So not only is LHHNY janking the Stevie J/Mimi relationship, but they’re also doing the Stevie J and Joseline thing too?)

Rich promises Erica the world, which at this point means a freaking Maxim photo shoot. While at the shoot, Rich tells Erica that this is a real step up for her “brand” and the she needs to stick to classy shoots like this if she wants to move on to Elle and cross over into high fashion.

Oh yes. Erica Mena is about to be the first video vixen to jump from ass clapping in a Rick Ross video to storming the catwalk in Milan. What the hell is Rich smoking?

Erica, unfortunately, doesn’t see through the smoke and mirrors and instead gives her big papi a kiss.

Later, when Rich meets up with his client, Olivia, he confesses to Liv that he’s kind of messing around with Erica, but he’s still interested in smashing random chicks. Olivia, with a caramel/doo doo brown highlight combo in her hair, defiantly complains that Rich needs to let Erica know the truth.

Rich says if Olivia’s so worried about it, she should tell Erica. So Olivia sets up a dinner date for the three of them.

Again, why these mofos always trying to break bread and beef at the same damn time? It never works.

At the dinner table, Olivia and Erica get on a girl power kick and the two women laugh and chat about Rich like he doesn’t there.

Rich starts to resent this when Olivia’s line of questioning turns personal as she asks Erica how she would handle Rich being unfaithful hypothetically. Erica’s voice raises and her tone turns sharp as she says that she wouldn’t take that shit as it’s early enough in the relationship for her to walk away.

Rich bucks up and challenges Erica to walk away then, and well, she does.

So much for that plan.

If Rich wants to play the Stevie J on LHHNY, he’s gonna have to do more than come up with a dysfunctional love triangle. He’s gonna need to invent his own unique take on Stevie’s rat face too. No half steppin’.